


Welcome To Our Life

by MeredithBrody



Category: NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James tells stories of his and Merri's history to prove himself to her friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome To Our Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Huntchaser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntchaser/gifts), [galia_carrots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galia_carrots/gifts), [PinkAngel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkAngel/gifts).



> This is a very, very late birthday fic for Leo. Also inspired by something they saw and have been begging me to write about for literally weeks.

James had only planned to be in New Orleans for a couple of days. That had been a month ago. Merri had needed him, and he didn't want to leave her before she was ready for that. He doubted that would be for a while, so he was looking for a local job so he didn't have to leave her. At this point they were together again, they just hadn't used those words yet. He was happy about that, and today he was bonding with her team. He'd managed to get on well with her boss, helping out behind the bar and talking about musicians, the table he was sat at now was more difficult. "So, you're Chris, Sonja and Ellie, right?" 

"Yeah, I saw you once before, last year." Chris was the one to reply, clearly remembering James' first visit with Merri since she moved here. He looked up to where Merri was laughing at the bar, while he felt himself being studied by the two women at the table. "You turned up at our crime scene to talk to Merri."

"I did, that's kind of what MB and I do. It's our way." He explained, knowing that her team didn't know him. The fact he'd known Meredith for more than a decade longer than any of them didn't seem to matter. They wanted what was best for her, and he could understand that. Especially after Russo.

“How long have you known Merri?” Sonja was the next one to ask a question, and all he could think was that even with all these questions, they wouldn’t really know enough about him to know if this was good for her. Especially only asking how long he’d known her when that really wouldn’t matter.

“About… Oof about 14 years.” He’d only been 25 at the time, Merri was still 24. It seemed like so much longer, yet at the same time, nowhere near as much time as it had been. He loved everything about her, even after all this time.

“How’d you meet?” How did these three have this so rehearsed, as if they each knew what the other was going to ask and when, so that nobody else spoke. He still tried to include all three in his conversation though.

“I was working with Emily and Daniel, they threw a housewarming party when they got an apartment in Dallas.” That party had apparently been wild, but he didn’t really remember it. All he remembered was sitting outside the apartment on the balcony all night listening to Merri talk about her life. “I met MB there and we were almost inseparable from the word go.”

“You knew Emily?” This time, all three of them asked at the same time, leading the two women to high five. It seemed like a strange situation for them, but if it was working who was he to judge.

“I knew Emily first, she was one of my best friends.” He still missed her, he was always going to miss her, but he had his fiance back. Even if she wasn’t his fiance again, yet. “Merri and I were together a long time. We called off the engaged, or MB did, almost a year later when I was assigned to a story in Afghanistan.” That had really just hastened the end, but it had been coming anyway. “We saw each other, on and off, since then. More regularly since she came here.”

“Why are you here now?” That was a harder question to answer, and he wasn’t honestly sure how to. They knew what had happened in May, Chris and Sonja had been there for it, but that didn’t mean that he should talk about Merri’s suffering. She had been so broken by what had happened, but she had tried to hide it. He could say something though.

He had to laugh a little at how intense they all were about this, and it made him feel like he was being interviewed. “I feel like I’m in a job interview, my palms are sweaty it’s actually pretty nerve-wracking.” He laughed again and smiled, then actually answered the question. “Olivia, her mum, called me after the situation in May. Didn’t give me details, but said MB was gonna need me. I got the first flight out.”

“What were you reporting on that led to you being able to leave.” Sonja asked, looking exactly as concerned about the fact that he might be losing money, or work, to be here.

“The EU referendum back home. I was actually living with my mum for the last few weeks. I don’t need to be in England to report on it though, I can write the articles from here.” He’d voted by post, and had been devastated by the result. He felt like being able to live and work in the US was good, but he would have given it all up if Merri needed him. “MB was more important.”

“Fine, fine, fine. I like him.” Chris said, holding his hands up and sighing softly. Clearly he’d been the one who was supposed to have been holding out on not liking him. James was glad that he hadn’t though, and that this had all been settled. 

“Chris was always going to be the hard one to win over.” Sonja smiled, rubbing Chris’ arm then looking back to James she smirked again and laughed. “So do you have any good stories? About Merri?”

“Do you want the silly ones or the rude ones?” He had to think about what would actually be appropriate for him to tell her co-workers. Then again, given how close this team seemed to be compared to her former teams, he could probably get away with almost anything.

“There are rude ones?” Chris seemed most interested in those ones, and James noticed that both Sonja and Ellie had sat forward a little at that idea. Probably not as surprising as he found it, given that he knew Merri was an extremely private person. There was therefore a question that he needed to let them percolate on.

“You do know Merri is… not exactly the most vanilla in the bedroom?” There was no other way to say that she was one of the kinkiest people he’d ever met and he loved that. 

“No.” Sonja and Chris said together, both with a hint of worry and confusion in their voices that made James want to laugh. 

“Yes.” Ellie was the only one to answer in the affirmative, and she gave James the subtlest of nods. Now that probably meant that Merri had shared some of the things they’d done together. Like every couple, they’d enjoyed quiet nights in where they hadn’t done too much, but then there were the other nights, in which he’d usually ended up wearing Merri’s handcuffs and very little else.

“Well. If you’re good people I’ll tell you a story related to that.” He grinned and teased, trying to think of other good stories. Most of the ones he had involved sex, but he could always fall back on Emily’s favourite story, about the bear and how she’d basically framed Merri for it. “Has she ever told you about how she and Emily got expelled from their third boarding school?”

“Merri and her sister were expelled from boarding school?” Ellie asked that one, and for as close as James knew those two women were he was genuinely surprised that Ellie hadn’t heard that story. It probably was the story that someone else needed to tell though. It wouldn’t be as funny if Merri told it herself.

“Two of them, their first closed.” How he remembered that tiny scrap of information from something Emily had told him more than a decade ago he didn’t know, but he did remember it, and this was all something he was going to use for leverage in this situation.

“OK now we need to know!” Sonja pressed him and smirked a little. James knew that Merri was going to kill him for telling stories, but it was more fun than he’d expected to have people listening to him rather than the other way around.

“There was a field trip to a zoo, I’m not sure which one I’ve never been able to keep my face straight through that part of the story. That Emily and Merri went to when they were in 7th grade.” He did the age conversion in his mind, he thought that it would be 7th, anyway. “Well, MB and Em wanted to test if bears were like Winnie The Pooh, so they snuck a jar of honey in Emily’s backpack, and as soon as they found the bear enclosure they started trying to tempt the bear with the honey.” The familiar mental image of this all swept over his mind, of Emily and Merri both covered in honey trying to attract the bear. “Emily would try, then Merri. That went on for about ten minutes, until inevitably Merri was the one found with her arm coated in honey stuck through the bar. Her teacher’s exact words were ‘stop taunting that bear, Meredith’.” At the laughter that erupted from the table he paused and chuckled along with them. “That was Emily’s favourite story to tell.” 

“That is amazing. Why am I totally unsurprised about Merri being involved in that.” Sonja laughed, clapping her hands together twice in amusement. James smiled a little and allowed his eyes to travel up and settle on Merri who was looking toward them all following that outburst.

“Because it’s essentially what she does with our suspects every day. Was she asking the bear questions.” Chris replied, though he was still slightly breathless from his laughter, while James didn’t move his eyes from Merri as she came over, running a hand along his shoulder when she met with them.

“Babe, you doing OK over here?” Merri asked leaning close to him but talking at a normal level so the others could still hear them. He was sure that she just wanted to know what had caused the laughter.

“Yeah, I just told the story about the bear.” He grinned and kissed her cheek while she was close enough to do that. He was certain that she wouldn’t necessarily be happy about it, but he couldn’t help it. 

“Did you tell my version or Emily’s version?” Merri asked and turned back to face him a little more, leaning against the table with her back to those sat opposite him for a second. 

“The one down the middle, that is probably the truthful one.” James had learnt the differences between the two accounts, and he figured that sticking with the facts that appeared in both stories was what actually happened. Merri just smiled then leant forward to hug him.

“They treating you OK?” She whispered, clearly worried that they weren’t going to treat him well. The truth was they were being better than he’d really expected.

“I’m fine, MB. Go back to what you were doing.” He teased then kissed her softly. Letting her think that everything was going simply here. When she pulled back he just smirked widely and thought about the one thing he could say that would get the others talking, only because it would make Merri say something. “I’m telling ruder stories next.”

“Just not the one about the…” Merri said exactly what he’d expected, implying the time they’d both been stuck in a compromising position and had had to call the fire service. The space just hadn’t been as big as it appeared.

He scowled, even though it was mostly acting, and shook his head aggressively. “I never want to relive that one again I thought we were going to pretend it never existed.” He grinned as she just stood up again and moved away.

“Right.” She clearly decided that wiping the memory clear of that was a better idea, and in truth he agreed with her, he never needed to think about the fact an entire fire crew had seen him the way they had. At that moment Pride yelled for Merri, and she waved then looked back at James. “Coming. I’ll punish you later.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” He responded and watched her walk away for a moment. When he turned back to the others at the table he realised they were all staring at him waiting for the next story. He just decided to play dumb and look around them with a curious look instead.

“So, another story?” Ellie said, clearly deciding she was the one who should try and bring his attention back to what they were talking about. He then smiled and nodded as if he just remembered then laughed.

“How about the time we got… experimental by a tree?” That made it sound possibly even weirder than it had been, but he couldn’t help it. That was just the best way to phrase it, even if it wasn’t necessarily accurate.

“Now you have to tell us that story.” The three of them chorused again, and James wondered if this is what it was like to be a teacher. Having so many eager people listening to him speak. Thinking of his own teachers, well, maybe not.

“Alright.” He then had to chuckle to himself again before he started the story. “As mentioned before, Merri is not the most vanilla in the bedroom, and nor am I. So while we were in the UK once we needed to get away. We were staying with my mother and it’s not easy to have fun while you’re staying with your mum.” He looked to Chris momentarily who just nodded in that combination of sympathy and mild horror at the thought. “Late one night we went up to a local park and we were… very into it. Then a local PCSO came walking through. Merri and I managed to cover up quickly, but we were using a piece of equipment.” He trailed off for a moment to allow some time for them to think about that.

“You had a dildo with you in the park?” Sonja was the first one to work it out, and James actually felt himself blush a little as he nodded.

“We did.” There were guffaws around the table, but James decided to press on and see how they reacted to the end of the story. “In the panic of the moment, and Merri being a visitor. She threw it and we had no idea where it went. The PCSO sent us home, and it was pitch black, so we had no time to search for it.” He stopped for a second as he laughed to himself remembering the panicked conversation as they walked back to his car. “The following morning we went back, starting to search through for it. Then, all of a sudden there was a shout of ‘that’s a funny looking branch’.” The laughter was ramping up again and James decided to add the kicker. “There was the dildo, in all it’s purple, sparkly glory.”

The reaction was immediate, and loud enough that he was pretty sure that every eye in the place turned to them. James couldn’t help but laugh along with them, at least he was laughing at a memory, not just a story. “Oh my god.” Ellie managed through her laughter and smiled at him. “That was possibly the best sex story I’ve ever heard.”

“Merri swore to me we were never going to do that again.” He chuckled as some of the laughter wore off, or at least receded to lower levels so everyone else went back to doing what they had been, though he could feel the glare that Merri was levelling at him.

“Has that held true?” Sonja was of course the one to ask that, but James was not entirely stupid, he wasn’t going to get caught out by that question.

“I’m going to say that’s classified. She’ll kill me if I say anything more.” He chuckled again and watched as Chris walked around the table and sat down on the chair beside him.

“I think I’m going to like having you around, James.” Chris replied with a smiled then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. James couldn’t help but laugh at that, as it did feel good to be accepted by Merri’s new family. It was important to her, even if she’d never said that outright. He was glad that they seemed to have enjoyed his stories, and he just hoped that they accepted him enough to know that he wasn’t going to let Merri go again.


End file.
